You can make mini-comics for all sorts of reasons -- you want to become a more effective cartoonist, you have something you want to say and you don't want to wait for a publisher, you want to show off your skills, you want an item to trade with other mini-comics makers, or maybe you want to make a tiny bit of cash (and I mean a very tiny bit of cash) at a forthcoming show.

But the reason you should make mini-comics is because of the unique opportunity it affords to participate in the art form. An underrated great thing about the comic art form is that there is an audience of people who are willing to accept those homemade forms of expression as legitimate and potentially satisfying art and entertainment. Your local music store probably does not have a section of homemade CDs from unsigned bands, your local bookstore likely does not carry leather-bound homemade journals from writers jotting down ideas between projects. You can find quite a few comic shops that carry locally and nationally produced mini-comics, yours among them if you choose. Outside of shops they are traded and collected at shows and on-line.

Making mini-comics means physically producing comics with whatever technology you have on hand: Xerox machines and silk screening set-ups, scissors and glue and staplers. You control the printing process. If that sounds like an appealing proposition, you're not alone. There are probably as many mini-comics made as there are regularly formatted comics being published. Several cartoonists got their start by making mini-comics, and a fair number continue to make them for a variety of reasons long after they've moved onto more commercial formats. A select few have stuck with mini-comics as the best publishing option for what they do. There is no wrong option, no rigid commercial standard, and no creative boundaries in mini-comics.

Mini-comics can be very simple or very elaborately produced. A folded piece of paper that is opened like a book can be a mini-comic, and so can a 132-page die-cut rounded-corner die-cut book with a hand stamp on every other page. Despite the name, size matters not at all. Even though many mini-comics are very small, others are quite large. Some feature covers made of the same paper as the drawings on the inside; others have elaborately produced or silk-screened covers. Anything you can do with pieces of paper to make them into a readable book, ten copies or five hundred: that's a mini-comic.

How Do I Make a Mini-Comic?

If it's not clear by now: any way you want.

When I edited a magazine about comics and had seen few mini-comics, I thought it would be fun to run a feature on how to physically make one. The columnist who covered mini-comics for the magazine thought this was a tremendously stupid idea. I can see why he thought this. Mini-comics aren't hard to make in their basic form, and the process is largely intuitive. Any way you can make paper hold together as a book makes for a viable mini-comic.

The only advice I've ever received before making my own mini-comics that I have since actually used is to always make this sort of dummy of a book before starting the copy process. If you are doing a mini-comic that takes up more than one piece of paper, you may have to divide the story onto various pieces of paper for Xeroxing. Knowing what the book looks like at the end of the process helps you make it to that end with the least amount of fuss.

For an example of this, look at any stapled magazine. Go to the middle section, where you can see the staples. If you pull that full sheet away from the staples, the centerfold you hold in your hand features four pages in a row: say 59, 60, 61, 62 with 59 and 62 on one side and 60 and 61 on another. Pull the sheet underneath that and it will have pages 57, 58, 63, 64 on it. Your Xeroxes have to be arranged in just such a manner, so that when the individual comics are assembled, they read in sequential order.

The good thing is that trial and error in mini-comics isn't cost-prohibitive. If you guess wrong while making your master copy, before you print several you can always paste together single pages onto sheets in the right order to make a new master copy. If you're working small enough, you may be able to fit two of everything onto one sheet, and so on. The main concern is you don't want to have a book that fails to make sense when it's put together.

Beyond what you use in making the art and writing in the comic itself, many cartoonists who do a lot of mini-comics get into specialized equipment, such as:

1. A Long Stapler, or a Stapling System
2. A Xerox Machine
3. Cutting Boards
4. Silk-Screen Set-Ups or Small Design Makers
5. Small Binders (for books of fifty-plus pages)

All of this stuff can be tremendously useful -- a stapler is a cheap, effective buy for even the most casual handmade comics maker -- but mini-comics can be made by anyone with paper, a ballpoint pen, and a few dollars for the copy store.

Here is a site and over here is another site both of which speak more explicitly to issues of mini-comics construction.

And here is a great free offer of a how-to mini-comic from mini-comics legend Matt Feazell. Send him a stamp to this address, and ask him nicely for the book.

Matt Feazell
PO Box 12038
Hamtramck MI 48212

Several artists whom I have contacted have also suggested a how-to article in 2002's Wizard Edge #1 by Jim Mahfood on the subject of making mini-comics.

How Do I Sell My Mini-Comic?

Most people sell their minis on a hand-to-hand basis, either directly through mail order or at conventions. The conventions it is easiest to find minis and therefore perhaps easiest to sell them are those that feature small press, independent and alternative publications. They are listed in the resources section below. As mentioned above, there exist on-line stores and actual physical comic book shops that carry and sell mini-comics, a lot of the time on commission. Most of them love to work with a creator who inquires as to the possibility of selling work through them. Comic shops are a great way to see your work distributed nationwide, although it is very rare to sell several copies that way.

There are a few specialty distributors who may be able to help you get work into stores, but most mini-comics makers work directly with shops and their own customers. Both shops and distribution networks are listed below.

Will Someone Review My Mini-Comic?

Maybe. I mean, I will. Other people... There are a few on-line web sites and at least one magazine that regularly reviews mini-comics submitted to them by cartoonists. They are listed in the resources section below.

What Can I Expect From Making a Mini-Comic?

The satisfaction of a job well done or at least a job, well, done. A mini-comic can be a great work of art all its own, and a satisfying experience for its creator. It can also be a way station to improve skills and gather attention before more saleable formats are pursued. However, there are very few flat-out breakthrough mini-comics. The only one that springs easily to mind is Adrian Tomine's Optic Nerve, which sold thousands of copies in mini-comic form before Tomine took his work to a more standard format at the respected publisher Drawn & Quarterly.

Adrian Tomine's success in the mini-comics format was extraordinary even for someone with his obvious talent. And there are definitely mini-comics that sell as miserably as Tomine's sold well. The vast majority sells somewhere in-between. Dozens of mini-comics find a small but appreciative audience, primarily through the determination and grit of their creators to have their work be seen. Some mini-comics makers keep a mailing list of everyone who buys their work. Many attend conventions to meet and greet and maybe even set up in a booth to sell their wares. A few buy advertisements in comics-related publications. Some create their own web sites and publicize their work in on-line chat forums, and others have gone so far as to sell them in the street. Your ability to disseminate your work, like the work itself, is largely up to you.

Making a mini-comic and selling it often works best over time because of the contacts made with other like-minded souls, both fellow artists and an audience. The mini-comics community is a pleasant and supportive one, made up of people who love making comics and enjoy helping others maximize their talent.

RESOURCES

Comic Book Conventions Significantly Focused on Mini-Comics Where One Might Exhibit and Sell Work

* Diamond has in their corporate lifetime almost never carried mini-comics - maybe three out of 14 million titles they've listed - but if yours is really, really, really fancy and accomplished, I guess it couldn't hurt to try.

Any suggested changes, concerns, or objections to the information presented on this page? Please e-mail.